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Damian Carrington

The US – by its absence not presence – has had a major impact on what appears likely to be a disappointing deal at the Cop30 climate summit. This is because the US is the only country with the power to influence Saudi Arabia, observers say.

The oil-rich kingdom has a decades-long history of obstructing the climate talks to protect its lucrative industry and has been widely blamed here in Belém for leading efforts to block any mention of fossil fuels. With Donald Trump calling climate change a “con job”, the US did not send a delegation to Cop30 and is withdrawing from the Paris agreement. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had a friendly meeting with Trump on Tuesday.

“Unfortunately with the departure of the US, we have lost one of the most powerful countries,” said Tom Rivett-Carnac, political strategist to the UN climate chief when the Paris agreement was done.

“In the years when I was involved in Cops, when the US is really behind an agreement and really wants to make it happen, and is prepared to exert its economic authority in bringing, for example, the Saudi Arabians round, then we can really do things,” he told the BBC.

“The trouble I think we are experiencing in Brazil is we don’t have that big push from the US and there is an emboldened attitude among the oil producing countries who feel there won’t be a consequence for them if they delay.”

Sources inside the negotiations have made the same point to the Guardian. The diplomatic might of the US, under presidents backing climate action, has often been a key factor in getting Cop deals over the line.

In October, bullying tactics by the US and a vote called by Saudi Arabia killed a plan to place a small levy on the carbon emissions on shipping.

Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman and US President Donald Trump speaks at the US-Saudi Investment Forum at the John F. Kennedy Center on November 19, 2025. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty ImagesShare

What happens if too many people leave the summit?

As Cop30 continues to overrun, a growing concern is what happens if delegates start to leave the venue. For all UN meetings, a key percentage of government need to be in the room. If it slips below that figure, the meeting is adjourned and everyone goes home.

The excellent Ed King wrote about this in his Climate Diplomacy Brief this morning:

Quorum is key: as cruise ships leave, many delegates have nowhere to stay tonight and will be heading out. Pacific delegates and many UN staffers are among those impacted. Brazil faces a race against time. Lula faces the prospect of explaining to G20 leaders why a summit he hoped would propel him to election victory in 2026 has ended in abject failure, with little to no support from his Brics allies and Saudi Arabia, which tried to kill efforts to talk cuts on Friday.

Remember, while large countries can have delegations of a few dozen people, many developing countries only send one or two representatives. If you need to fly home from Belem to a Pacific island or central Africa, bookings are hard to move.

At the biodiversity Cop16 in Cali last year, the meeting ended in disarray after too many negotiators were forced to head home. The meeting had to be completed in Rome a few months later. That is a scenario we cannot rule out.

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Updated at 07.46 EST

Ahead of the final plenary, I checked in with our environment editor Fiona Harvey in Belem to ask what we might expect in the next couple of hours. The word on the ground is that we should expect a final plenary to begin in the next 90 minutes or so. But in truth, it is unclear.

This is what she told me:

It’s as clear as mud. They have called the plenary for 10am Belem time but we don’t know what is happening to the text or if they will try to gavel something through without that. It could be that there’s a plenary and then it adjourns quite quickly for people to finish the negotiations – or they just try to barrel it all through. We just do not know.

Meanwhile, ministers are arriving at the venue.

Britain’s Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Ed Miliband walks at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP30), in Belem, Brazil, November 22, 2025. Photograph: Adriano Machado/ReutersWopke Hoekstra, European Commissioner for Climate, Net Zero and Clean Growth, arrives at the EU meeting room during the COP30 Photograph: Pablo Porciúncula/AFP/Getty ImagesShare

Good morning and welcome to our coverage of Cop30 in Belem.

We are at the business end of the climate summit. Today appears to be the day that we will get an agreement in some form, but anything is still possible at this stage. Delegates are tired – ministers will have likely negotiated into the early hours – and return flights are getting closer. We are still waiting for a revised text for governments to debate at a closing plenary, which is set to begin at 10am local time (1pm in London). But as always, timings are flexible.

Cop30 president Andre Correa do Lago has arrived at the venue. He was photographed whispering into his phone a few minutes ago. Countries appear to be still far apart on any agreement to draw up a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels. Can do Lago and his negotiating team thread the needle?

If you would like to catch up on the state of play, our reporters on the ground have been hard at work summarising proceedings. Here is a summary of the headlines:

• The UK energy secretary Ed Miliband said a deal to create a roadmap away from fossil fuels needed to happen “one way or another” – even if it was a voluntary process.

• One representative from a country vulnerable to the climate crisis said: “Sometimes it’s like we are arguing with robots.”

• Observers claimed the Arab group of nations had warned any mention of phasing out fossil fuels in final negotiations would see the talks collapse.

• The architect of the Paris climate deal, Laurence Tubiana, said countries should not fear pursuing a deal on a roadmap.

• Turkey and Australia has agreed to the details on hosting next year’s Cop31 summit, that will be held in Turkey. Turkey will take on the Cop31 presidency and an Australian – energy minister Chris Bowen – will be appointed vice-president and “president of negotiations”

• Africa governments were still pushing for a tripling of the finance available from rich countries to help the poor world adapt to the impacts of the climate crisis.

• AP reported that Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez, a top negotiator for Panama, had said the decades-long United Nations process risks “becoming a clown show” for the omission of burning of fuels such as oil, gas and coal as causes of global warming from the final text.

COP30 President Andre Correa do Lago speaks on the phone during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP30), in Belem, Brazil, November 22, 2025. Photograph: Adriano Machado/ReutersShare

Updated at 07.46 EST